Hackers Lured Syrian Rebels With Sexy Pics, Stole Their Battle Plans

Syrian opposition fighters were foiled when hackers used sexy photos dripping with malware to infiltrate their computers, because not even masturbation is safe during the Syrian civil war.

Here’s how it worked: Hackers took to Skype with “attractive” lady avatars, according to CNBC, and began heavy digital flirting with Syrian opposition fighters. Then a hacker would ask the rebel what device he was using so “she” could send some spicy pictures, and he easily obliged. But when the rebel opened the pictures, the hidden malware swarmed through and the “attractive” hackers gained access to his entire device or devices.

Ultimately, the sexy pics sting resulted in “7.7 gigabytes of data being stolen” along with “31,107 Skype conversations, 12,356 contacts and nearly a quarter of a million messages.” From CNBC’s report:

Interestingly, each female Skype avatar used by the hackers also had a corresponding Facebook account, which was populated with pro-opposition content, although many of the links were malicious.

A fake opposition website was also in operation, and included pictures of several women with links to social media accounts and “Live Cam ID.” Both links were malicious and allowed hackers to collect data from their victims.

The Syrian civil war has been underway since 2011. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the country in the wake of bloody attacks and bombings.